Abstract:
The paper introduces two new structural objects for the study of nets:
handles and bridges. They are shown to provide sufficient, although not
necessary, conditions of good behaviour for general ordinary nets, as well
as a new characterisation of structural liveness and structural
boundedness for the subclass of free choice nets. This characterisation is
used to approach a modular synthesis theory of free choice nets through
the synchronisation of state machines. The task is fully performed for the
restricted subclass of strict free choice nets introduced.